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A review by cstack
Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think by Steven Kotler, Peter H. Diamandis
3.0
This book was published in 2012 but I read it 2018, so I got to look up how a lot of his predictions panned out. And a lot of them did not turn out well. For example, the sustainable city Masdar mentioned near the beginning still only has grad students living in it. The energy company Aquion is bankrupt. I realize part of his argument is that we should be trying lots of stuff and failing at most of it, but you don't necessarily take that to heart when you're reading about all these amazing technologies.
On the other hand, this book legitimately changed my view on water scarcity. Aluminum used to be super expensive, but it's the third most common element in Earth's crust. Once we figured out a cheap way to extract it, it became disposable. 97% of water on earth is salt water. If we can make desalination cheap, water scarcity means a lot less. Same goes for electricity. More solar energy reaches the earth than we'll ever need, if we can only utilize it cheaply.
On the other hand, this book legitimately changed my view on water scarcity. Aluminum used to be super expensive, but it's the third most common element in Earth's crust. Once we figured out a cheap way to extract it, it became disposable. 97% of water on earth is salt water. If we can make desalination cheap, water scarcity means a lot less. Same goes for electricity. More solar energy reaches the earth than we'll ever need, if we can only utilize it cheaply.